Eld Varg’s One Man Army is a first class storming album of brutal riff-based heavy/power metal with a top slice of mystical atmospherics done so well by the Scandinavian bands of the genre – although Eld Varg hails from Scotland. You can imagine Viking warriors gathered round a pre-battle camp fire listening to this to get them fired up for the fight.
Your One Man Army is Ollie Noakes – a multi-instrumentalist who takes on the whole shooting match himself taking care of all song writing, vocals and instrumentation. And what a fine job he’s done.
From start to finish the riffage doesn’t let up and neither do the scorching solos or the overall power of the songs.
I knew after the first few bars of And So It Begins this was going to be a “good ‘un” as we say in Yorkshire. And I wasn’t wrong. That opening track is remarkable. Cutting, slashing, rampaging riffs aplenty breaking out in to further measured mayhem after the thumping intro.
It’s relentless (in a good way) from then on throughout. To The Beyond and Vulcan’s Hammer, Fists of Steel, Wolfpack et al battering away at your senses without letting go. Though it’s not noise for the sake of it – far from it.
Ollie’s song writing and arranging is skilful and the songs fit together so well as those never-ending riffs and fretboard burning solos don’t let up.
Well, they sort of do on Wastelands – a big rumbling bass lead in to a more of a slower almost “plodding” style for a while before that too breaks out in to another scorcher. Have a listen:
The Thunders of Mount Doom is, er, thunderous as is Satan’s Minions.
Then the epic twelve minute or so closer of Between the Moon and Stars. It’s all going on here. Speed and time changes, more cutting, slashing, battering ram riffs, screaming solos and power all round. Remarkable.
Coming in at around an hour, Ollie could have fallen in to the trap of making the album fill out the time for the sake of it (like some do) because you can squeeze that much music on to CD. Instead One Man Army captures the attention straight away and holds it fully for that hour.
Eld Varg/One Man Army is an album I highly recommend and more than worthy. At least check it out.
For you digital types – it’s on Amazon Music here: https://amzn.to/3liiDjt
Or have a look at the Bandcamp page – Eld varg (bandcamp.com) where you can have a listen. From there a limited edition CD is (as I type) available. It’s a limited edition of just 100 each signed and hand numbered.
As it says on Eld Varg’s Bandcamp: “Riffs, riffs and more riffs. Hailing from Scotland, Eld Varg have set out on a quest of riff laden metal for the ages. Eld Varg have created a heavy, groovy and melodic metal album with enough Norse, metal snake and celestial tales to satisfy even the most metal of metal fans.”
Nailed it!